SOURCE: "Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia and the Evolution of an Ironic Presence," in Theatre Journal Vol. 41, No. 1, March, 1989, pp. 75-94.

In the following essay, Demastes argues that while Swimming to Cambodia is rooted in the principles of experimental theater, it undermines and transcends those principles.

Spalding Gray's career in the theatre has encompassed a variety of theories and practices. He was educated in traditional forms, then moved to Richard Schechner's Performance Group, and later worked with the Wooster Group. Gray's current involvement in auto-performance shows a tremendous debt to these earlier affiliations, yet many critics seem to have dismissed Gray's current work as indulgent, dilettantish, and no longer part of the serious avant-garde experimentalist's concern. He has, after all, been co-opted into mainstream American culture, as his critics are quick to note. This easy dismissal of Gray, however, seems premature. In fact, many of the reasons Gray...